


princeling

by halcyonskies



Series: OTP Challenge [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: A little anyway, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Arranged Marriage, Blood and Gore, Caretaker Dean, Caretaker Sam, Deer Castiel, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prince Castiel, Wolf Dean, Wolf Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6821050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyonskies/pseuds/halcyonskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not like Dean asks for these things to happen. Trouble or not, though, he knows he's going to help the little royal if he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	princeling

**Author's Note:**

> 6th Challenge - Fantasy World
> 
> inspiration for this one is taken heavily from shannon hale's 'goose girl'

In an instant, Dean could tell that the buck lying in his garden was no simple beast.

“Shit,” he cursed quietly to himself, approaching the pitiful looking creature. The scent of blood reached his nose well before he saw the sorry state of its thick brown coat – red-streaked and torn, thistles buried in the pale insides of its long legs. Had it not been wheezing heavily into the grass, Dean might have thought it was dead.

He called for Sam, and between the two of them they managed to drag the buck into the goatshed. Gerdy didn’t take too kindly to her home being invaded, bleating angrily as Dean and his brother were wiping the blood from their hands. 

“Get out of here!” Dean snapped, herding her away, while Sam examined the buck further. It was the boy’s shocked gasp that drew Dean’s attention back to their uninvited guest. 

“Dean, look at his leg.” It was a nasty wound that Dean discovered, deep and inflamed, in the meat of the buck’s right hind leg. Even as they looked on, blood and pus were leaking heavily from the gash. It smelled awful, and it was obviously the work of something with sharp teeth.

“He’s been attacked.”

“By what, though? And where did he come from?” 

Dean wasn’t sure of the answer to either question. As far as he knew, the deer had always kept to their own country. It was rare to see anyone that wasn’t a wolf in these parts – the closest foreigner around here was Charlie, the witch that lived in the cottage near Darkleaf. In fact, that whole business about the princess marrying some buck from Caelum was supposed to be the first time in years that deer had set foot in Ferus. 

“You don’t suppose he’s part of the prince’s guard?” Sam asked, just as the same suspicion was beginning to form in Dean’s mind. 

“Maybe.” Dean shook his head and frowned, turning toward the house. “Whatever his story is, that wound needs looking after. Get some soap and water while I find the bandages.”

//

The buck was awake and two-legged when they returned.

“What happened?” the deer slurred groggily, looking up at Dean and Sam with glazed blue eyes. One look at the buck’s clothing and Dean knew he had to be noble. It was nothing like his and Sam’s homespun attire; tattered and dirty as it was, there was no mistaking the expensive fabric and the glint of gilded buttons making a line down the buck’s chest. 

A heap of  _ trouble,  _ that was what it was.

Still, Dean wasn’t about to refuse the stranger the care he so obviously needed. Kneeling down beside the buck’s injured leg, Dean said, “We were hoping you’d be able to tell us. We found you face-down in the carrots, antlers.”

Through the muzzy film of shock and fatigue, Dean thought he saw a hint of irritation in the deer’s eyes. “My name isn’t  _ antlers.  _ It’s–  _ ah!” _

Sam had to hold the buck down while Dean cleaned out the leg wound, sluicing water and soap down over the broken skin until the water ran relatively clear. By the time an unguent had been applied and the wound was wrapped tight, the deer looked close to unconsciousness again. Impressed – he’d seen wolves bigger and broader than this buck faint clean away with festering wounds like that – Dean patted the stranger softly on the shoulder. 

“Sorry about that, antlers, but it had to be done.”

Blue eyes blinked owlishly at him, and for a moment Dean found he couldn’t look away. Then Sam was clearing his throat and hopping to his feet, shaking bits of straw away from his trousers. 

“I’m Sam,” Dean’s brother introduced himself, twitching his ears politely in greeting. “This is Dean. I believe you were about to tell us your name before Dean so rudely interrupted?”

“Hey, I–”

“Castiel. It’s Castiel.” The buck shook his head, seeming a little lost, long brown ears flopping back and forth. “I – I’m from Caelum.”

“Yeah, we figured.” Dean reached out and flicked one of the buck’s prominent antlers, ignoring the heated glare it earned him. “The real question is, what are you doing all the way out here?”

“And what attacked you?” Sam added, ever the nosy cub. 

The buck looked a little overwhelmed at that, seeming to take in for the first time that Sam and Dean were wolves and that he was indeed a stranger in these parts. His fingers began to shake, and his eyes widened in panic. “I – I don’t know if –”

“Hey, there’s no need to get upset. You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

“But Dean–”

“No, Sammy, don’t push it. It’s probably better if we don’t know the whole story anyway. I get the feeling Castiel isn’t supposed to be here. Am I right, Cas?”

The deer looked away, twisting at the frayed hem of his tunic. “In a sense. I’m . . . sorry.”

Dean shrugged, flicking his tail indifferently. He gathered his supplies together and stood, looking down into Castiel’s guilty face. “S’pose you’ll be needing a place to rest.”

The buck’s expression fell further. “I couldn’t ask you to accommodate me, Dean. You’ve already helped me so much . . . I would never have known how to treat that wound myself. You probably saved my life.”

Uncomfortable with the sheer earnestness in Castiel’s voice, Dean impatiently waved the thankfulness away. “It was no huge bother. What kind of wolves would we be if we just let a stranger keel over in the vegetable patch? In any case, it’s not like you have anywhere else to go.”

Castiel ducked his head. “No. I suppose not.”

“Then it’s settled. C’mon, let’s see if we can get you up.”

//

Once he’d had a chance to wash and change, Castiel looked much closer to the noble Dean had no doubt he was. Even swimming in one of Sam’s old shirts and trousers, the buck had the appearance of a gentile, soft-skinned and pale. The days-old stubble did nothing to hide the fine bones of his face, a little princeling if Dean had ever seen one – and this was all getting just a little too big for Dean, a simple forest-born wolf that had lived in Graybough all his life. 

It was after supper and after Sam had gone to bed that Castiel finally admitted something of his mysterious arrival. 

“I assume . . . you know about the impending marriage. Between Caelum’s prince and your princess.”

“‘Course, everyone knows about that.” Dean snorted, shifting a little closer to the lamplight so that he could better see his needles as they worked through the soft green yarn in his hands. “Sammy talks about it all the time, as if it makes any difference to bumpkins like us what the royals are doing. He’s an ambitious kid, thinks he’s going to live some shiny life in the city one day.”

Castiel frowned. “Yes, well . . . then you know who I am.”

“How’s that?”

Judging by the look on the buck’s face, Dean guessed he should know exactly what Castiel was talking about. “Dean, the buck marrying your princess is named Castiel.”

_ Oh. _

Feeling like a fool (lord, hadn’t he just finished telling Castiel how much Sam talked about all that royal nonsense?), Dean looked up from his knitting and scrutinized Castiel anew. “You’re a prince? You’re  _ the  _ prince?”

Almost reluctantly, Castiel nodded. He was gazing determinedly down at his lap, as if he was  _ embarrassed  _ of the admission. It was so ridiculous that, for a brief moment, Dean wondered if perhaps this entire day had been a dream.

“What the hell are you doing out here, then?”

“I was – betrayed. By someone I thought was . . . loyal to me.”

“Well, shit."

“I was naive. I never expected . . .” Upon his knee the prince’s hand clenched into a fist, skin straining with what Dean could only assume was repressed anger. “It was my – my servant. I thought he was my friend. But . . .”

“Jealously? Ambition?” Dean asked shrewdly.

“Ambition. Or perhaps a little bit of both.” Castiel curled in on himself, ears drooping down in misery. “He said he felt trapped. That he was tired of being pushed down while – while people like me squandered their opportunity to be . . . great.”

“Sounds like envy to me.” 

“Maybe you’re right, Dean. At any rate, he’d amassed quite a following by the time we were nearing the end of our journey. There was a slaughter . . . my guard, any that were still loyal to me – Inias ordered Alastair and his men to kill them all.”

Dean felt the blood in his veins turn to ice, his needles glancing uselessly off of one another. “Alastair?”

“Yes. I’d never seen him before, but he and Inias seemed close. Captain Gadreel said he was a mercenary.”

“Tell me, Castiel: was this Alastair a wolf? Gray coat, pale eyes?”

Castiel shuddered, and Dean’s heart sank. “Yes, that’s Alastair. He was the first wolf I’d seen since I was a fawn. But how did you know?”

Dean shook his head, setting his knitting aside and rising to his feet. If he wanted this pullover done in time for marketday next month he knew he should work for at least another hour, but he couldn’t sit here and talk to this princeling about Alastair. It was bad enough that the bastard was still alive. “He’s well known around here, Cas. All you really need to know is that it’s better if you stay away from him.”

The buck looked down at the bulk of bandages hidden under his trousers, fingers clenching reflexively in the hem of his borrowed shirt. “I understand, Dean.”

Dean grit his teeth against the sudden and surprising wave of anger that washed over him. “Alastair did that to you?”

Castiel nodded. “I’m glad it’s all he did. If Gadreel hadn’t caught up with us, I know Alastair would have killed me. He . . . probably died trying to give me time to escape.”

Uncertain how to respond, Dean thought it best to remain silent. He put his knitting basket away and pulled the goathair blanket from the back of his chair, offering it to Castiel. “You can use this while you’re staying here. C’mon, I’ll help you to bed.”

Dean knew the jostling must have hurt something awful, but Castiel was quiet as they inched their way across the floor. When he’d finally managed to lay himself flat in Dean’s bed, Castiel looked up at him through the dark fringe of his hair, brow pinched. 

“This is your bed, Dean. I’m the one that should be sleeping in the goatshed.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the one that’s injured. Don’t worry about it, Cas – oh.”

“What is it?”

Dean fidgeted uncomfortably beside the mattress, unable to look at Castiel directly. “I mean, I just realized, I should probably be calling you ‘Your Highness’ or something.”

From the corner of his eye, Dean saw the buck frantically shaking his head. “No, no, Dean. That’s not necessary. I’m hardly royal anymore, and anyway . . . I was never much of a prince to begin with. Honestly, I don’t mind.”

“Well, alright then.” Dean felt his lips pulling at the corner, a fond smile curling his mouth quite without his permission. “Goodnight, Cas.”

The deer prince smiled back. “Goodnight, Dean.”


End file.
